Manama (Somalia Today) — Bahrain and Kuwait secretly sent combat aircraft to strike military sites inside Iran earlier this month, marking their first direct retaliation against Tehran as Gulf Arab states become increasingly entangled in a war they had sought to avoid, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The raids targeted drone and missile storage depots and other military facilities, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the operations.
The United Arab Emirates supplied intelligence on the targets and provided defensive air cover, signalling growing military coordination among some Gulf states as Iranian attacks intensify across the region.
Neither Bahrain nor Kuwait has publicly confirmed the strikes, and government spokespeople in both countries did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.
The UAE, which the newspaper previously reported had carried out dozens of strikes against Iran earlier in the conflict, has publicly called for de-escalation and the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Its foreign ministry condemned Iran’s renewed missile and drone attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait, saying Abu Dhabi “stands in full solidarity with these states and reaffirms its support for all measures aimed at safeguarding their security and stability”.
Gulf states drawn deeper
Iran has repeatedly targeted Bahrain and Kuwait, which host major US military facilities, since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February.
Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, while Kuwait accommodates thousands of American troops at several installations.
The two Gulf states have relatively small air forces equipped mainly with US and European aircraft, but officials did not want Tehran to continue striking them without a response, according to the Journal.
Iran has also stepped up attacks on critical infrastructure.
Kuwait said Sunday that an Iranian attack struck a power generation and water desalination facility, calling it a direct assault on vital civilian infrastructure and a “dangerous escalation”.
The reported raids highlight the increasingly difficult choices facing Gulf governments, which spent years trying to ease tensions with Tehran while promoting their countries as stable centres for tourism, finance and foreign investment.
“The war continuing in the manner that it is playing out right now is their worst-case scenario,” Dina Esfandiary, a Middle East analyst at Bloomberg Economics, told the Journal.
“That is because it does not give them the opportunity to rebuild and maintain their image as a haven for stability in an unstable region. It affects their very models.”
The UAE entered the conflict early and carried out dozens of strikes against Iran, continuing until the day after an April ceasefire announcement, according to the newspaper.
Iran has largely avoided striking the UAE in recent weeks, although it hit two Emirati oil tankers earlier this month.
Saudi Arabia also joined the UAE in attacking Iran earlier in the war but is now reassessing its position, the Journal reported. Oman and Qatar, which have long balanced relations between Iran and the West, have shown little appetite for direct confrontation.
Two shipping choke points
Gulf governments had hoped the war would end quickly, allowing them to return their attention to economic diversification and investment.
Instead, the conflict has entered its fifth month without a lasting settlement, while fighting threatens two of the world’s most important shipping routes: the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb passage at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
The Strait of Hormuz carried about 20 per cent of global petroleum liquids consumption and roughly one-quarter of seaborne oil trade before the conflict, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Iran’s grip on the waterway has sharply reduced Gulf oil exports, while tourism and foreign investment have also come under pressure.
A second threat emerged when Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement announced a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia at the Bab el-Mandeb gateway.
The Houthis described the move as an “eye for an eye” response to what they called a Saudi blockade of Yemen.
Attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea pushed oil prices above $100 a barrel on Thursday, forced some vessels to change course and increased insurance costs for ships using the route.
The twin threats have raised pressure on Arab governments to decide whether protecting export routes and critical infrastructure requires more open military action against Iran.
“I think Gulf countries are beginning to realise that this war will continue for some time now,” Umer Karim, a researcher on Saudi policy and Gulf geopolitics at the University of Birmingham, told the Journal.
“This eventually means that they would have to confront Iran openly.”
Karim said some Gulf governments were even beginning to consider regime change in Tehran because living alongside the current Iranian leadership could leave them vulnerable to Iranian regional dominance.
